Daye barely played because he had 3 fouls in 4 minutes. And not one of the fouls was smart.

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Nope. One was a bad call. The other two, Daye was helping out our hopeless interior D, which features CV. Note, CV also did not play in the 2nd half. Basically, a couple of decisions meant neither CV nor Daye played in the 2nd half. One, Singler back in with the subs, and 2 keeping the pair of Drummond and Monroe out their for extended minutes.

The first decision, combined with the insistence of playing both Bynum and Stuckey, leaves no room for Daye. You know my opinion. Quit playing Bynum, let Stuckey throw those alley oops to Drummond. Daye is a whole lot more defensive player than Bynum is.

However, in all, the fact that we did not put Bynum and CV in together in the 2nd half, I will agree with. Having two such poor defenders out there is just not manageable. Hiding one poor defender is usually doable. Which is why I can accept having CV out there with a unit of Stuckey, Singler, Daye, CV, Drummond.

Just to remind you, our bench has not helped win a game since Bynum and Stuckey have been in together. Before that, it became a pretty potent bench due to the combination of Daye and CV providing outside shooting to spread the floor.

Also, we have twice tried Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond. It has not worked, as Bynum is anything but a point guard. Sure, he can run a play now and again. But if speed were all there was to basketball, why not just hire track stars? You got to know how to play the game, and Bynum does not.

Off of the top of my head, I cant EVER remember Stuckey thowing an alley-oop pass to ANYone. ...in his entire freaking career. I'm sure he's done it but I can't picture it happening. That's a hard play to make for a guy who dribbles with his head down.

Just to remind you, our bench has not helped win a game since Bynum and Stuckey have been in together. Before that, it became a pretty potent bench due to the combination of Daye and CV providing outside shooting to spread the floor.

Also, we have twice tried Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond. It has not worked, as Bynum is anything but a point guard. Sure, he can run a play now and again. But if speed were all there was to basketball, why not just hire track stars? You got to know how to play the game, and Bynum does not.

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I'm not sure where your hatred of Bynum comes from. He leads the team in assist percentage and has better court vision than Stuckey. He has the best rapport with Drummond of any of the guards on the team. He's shooting better from long range (.400 vs. .312) and overall (.446 vs. .385). His defensive rating (108) is approximately the same as Stuckey's (109), and he forces more steals. At the very least, he's not all that much different from Stuckey, assuming one gives Stuck the benefit of the doubt and allows that his poor shooting may have been just because of a bad start to the year.

The biggest problem is that the Pistons have to put guards in positions that are not their strengths. Knight is a 2-guard in a 1's body, and Stuckey and Bynum both operate best with the ball in their hand. Bynum is the best guard on the team at finding the open player, but naturally defers to Stuckey when Rodney is on the court. Bynum is not a 2-guard, but paired with Stuckey he has to become one, and that's not his strength. The two are TERRIBLE together - we all know it, but for some reason coach keeps trying to put Bynum at the two with Stuckey running the point and it just doesn't work. When that's the case it looks like Bynum is playing poorly (to be fair, he is), but the reality is that he's miscast for that role - he's too short to be an effective spot-up shooter and can't guard the two. But when Stuckey isn't out there and Bynum is running the point, then just like you said, it was a potent bench combination because the Pistons spread the floor and Bynum had more room to operate. Note that, statistically, Stuckey runs that same unit nearly as well, but it's just not as fun to watch because Stuckey isn't lobbing dunks to Dre.

As for your second comment, you're wrong on an embarrassing level; Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond is actually the Pistons' best 5-man unit, at +24 in 30 minutes spread out over 6 games. If you're gauging them by the -2 they had in the whopping 35 seconds they played together last night, then you need to take a look at the bigger picture.

I'm not sure where your hatred of Bynum comes from. He leads the team in assist percentage and has better court vision than Stuckey. He has the best rapport with Drummond of any of the guards on the team. He's shooting better from long range (.400 vs. .312) and overall (.446 vs. .385). His defensive rating (108) is approximately the same as Stuckey's (109), and he forces more steals. At the very least, he's not all that much different from Stuckey, assuming one gives Stuck the benefit of the doubt and allows that his poor shooting may have been just because of a bad start to the year.

The biggest problem is that the Pistons have to put guards in positions that are not their strengths. Knight is a 2-guard in a 1's body, and Stuckey and Bynum both operate best with the ball in their hand. Bynum is the best guard on the team at finding the open player, but naturally defers to Stuckey when Rodney is on the court. Bynum is not a 2-guard, but paired with Stuckey he has to become one, and that's not his strength. The two are TERRIBLE together - we all know it, but for some reason coach keeps trying to put Bynum at the two with Stuckey running the point and it just doesn't work. When that's the case it looks like Bynum is playing poorly (to be fair, he is), but the reality is that he's miscast for that role - he's too short to be an effective spot-up shooter and can't guard the two. But when Stuckey isn't out there and Bynum is running the point, then just like you said, it was a potent bench combination because the Pistons spread the floor and Bynum had more room to operate. Note that, statistically, Stuckey runs that same unit nearly as well, but it's just not as fun to watch because Stuckey isn't lobbing dunks to Dre.

As for your second comment, you're wrong on an embarrassing level; Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond is actually the Pistons' best 5-man unit, at +24 in 30 minutes spread out over 6 games. If you're gauging them by the -2 they had in the whopping 35 seconds they played together last night, then you need to take a look at the bigger picture.

Daye barely played because he had 3 fouls in 4 minutes. And not one of the fouls was smart.

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Daye played some very poor defense, that is for sure. He totally lost sight of his guy on one possession, which ended up being an uncontested layup. It's a simple concept kids learn in elementary school. Always see your man and the ball. A couple of mistakes and his body language fell as it did in 2012. Hopefully, he puts this game behind him and bounces back to his decent play as of late.

I'm not sure where your hatred of Bynum comes from. He leads the team in assist percentage and has better court vision than Stuckey. He has the best rapport with Drummond of any of the guards on the team. He's shooting better from long range (.400 vs. .312) and overall (.446 vs. .385). His defensive rating (108) is approximately the same as Stuckey's (109), and he forces more steals. At the very least, he's not all that much different from Stuckey, assuming one gives Stuck the benefit of the doubt and allows that his poor shooting may have been just because of a bad start to the year.

The biggest problem is that the Pistons have to put guards in positions that are not their strengths. Knight is a 2-guard in a 1's body, and Stuckey and Bynum both operate best with the ball in their hand. Bynum is the best guard on the team at finding the open player, but naturally defers to Stuckey when Rodney is on the court. Bynum is not a 2-guard, but paired with Stuckey he has to become one, and that's not his strength. The two are TERRIBLE together - we all know it, but for some reason coach keeps trying to put Bynum at the two with Stuckey running the point and it just doesn't work. When that's the case it looks like Bynum is playing poorly (to be fair, he is), but the reality is that he's miscast for that role - he's too short to be an effective spot-up shooter and can't guard the two. But when Stuckey isn't out there and Bynum is running the point, then just like you said, it was a potent bench combination because the Pistons spread the floor and Bynum had more room to operate. Note that, statistically, Stuckey runs that same unit nearly as well, but it's just not as fun to watch because Stuckey isn't lobbing dunks to Dre.

As for your second comment, you're wrong on an embarrassing level; Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond is actually the Pistons' best 5-man unit, at +24 in 30 minutes spread out over 6 games. If you're gauging them by the -2 they had in the whopping 35 seconds they played together last night, then you need to take a look at the bigger picture.

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Good post. I agree with some of it, but disagree with other parts. Hate Bynum? Hardly. I am just looking at it objectively, no more. Stats don't always tell the story. Indeed, Bynum ran that unit, several games back, and that unit did well. But coaches adjust, and lately, that unit does not work. As you said, the same unit, with Stuckey running it, is also good. The difference? Nobody has solved it. Only our own coach has stopped it from being effective - by not playing that unit anymore. Got to go for now. Will address more of your post later.

I'm not sure where your hatred of Bynum comes from. He leads the team in assist percentage and has better court vision than Stuckey. He has the best rapport with Drummond of any of the guards on the team. He's shooting better from long range (.400 vs. .312) and overall (.446 vs. .385). His defensive rating (108) is approximately the same as Stuckey's (109), and he forces more steals. At the very least, he's not all that much different from Stuckey, assuming one gives Stuck the benefit of the doubt and allows that his poor shooting may have been just because of a bad start to the year.

The biggest problem is that the Pistons have to put guards in positions that are not their strengths. Knight is a 2-guard in a 1's body, and Stuckey and Bynum both operate best with the ball in their hand. Bynum is the best guard on the team at finding the open player, but naturally defers to Stuckey when Rodney is on the court. Bynum is not a 2-guard, but paired with Stuckey he has to become one, and that's not his strength. The two are TERRIBLE together - we all know it, but for some reason coach keeps trying to put Bynum at the two with Stuckey running the point and it just doesn't work. When that's the case it looks like Bynum is playing poorly (to be fair, he is), but the reality is that he's miscast for that role - he's too short to be an effective spot-up shooter and can't guard the two. But when Stuckey isn't out there and Bynum is running the point, then just like you said, it was a potent bench combination because the Pistons spread the floor and Bynum had more room to operate. Note that, statistically, Stuckey runs that same unit nearly as well, but it's just not as fun to watch because Stuckey isn't lobbing dunks to Dre.

As for your second comment, you're wrong on an embarrassing level; Bynum, Singler, Daye, CV, and Drummond is actually the Pistons' best 5-man unit, at +24 in 30 minutes spread out over 6 games. If you're gauging them by the -2 they had in the whopping 35 seconds they played together last night, then you need to take a look at the bigger picture.

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Time for more response. Is it hatred of Bynum to point out that our bench, let alone no longer extending leads or erasing deficits, can no longer hold a lead for us of any size? No, its just pointing out that we no longer have a bench of any note since Bynum and Stuckey began trying to coexist in our backcourt.

Lets examine how Bynum got into the rotation. Was Stuckey doing really bad? No, our bench scored over 80 points, and Bynum got into the game for garbage time. Hmm, bench humming along. Here comes Bynum. Within a few games, our bench is doing nothing. Stuckey did get injured, and Bynum did his job as the 3rd string point. Fantastic. If it had stopped there, indeed, we could all say Bynum contributed - as the 3rd string point. But, instead, we have Frank forcing Bynum into the rotation, and our bench going from vaunted to a zero.

Now, Bynum was actually plus as part of our modified starting unit in this last game. Only, wait a moment, our starters were kicking tail mightily before Bynum played as part of the "starting" unit.

Stuckey, (instead of Knight), Bynum (instead of Singler), Singler (now replacing Tay), Monroe (now replacing JMAX), and Drummond (now replacing Monroe.) Good unit, did well. With Bynum the only guy to hide on defense, not too bad on that end of the floor. This unit removes two players who should not be starting for us, JMAX, and Tay, from the starting unit. Which improves it quite a bit. Stuckey has never represented any kind of dropoff from Knight as a point guard. Singler is way more effective than Tay at spreading the floor and is just generally way more active than Tay these days.

One last thing I will cover. No, Knight is not a shooting guard. You shoot the ball to him as he comes off a pick, and he is most likely going to miss. If he tries to shake off his guy, he is going to miss. Yes, he can hit a 3 if forgotten about, but that does not make him a shooting guard. Stuckey also, if forgotten about so he can step into his shot, can make a 3 upon occasion. Still not a shooting guard by any stretch. What Knight excells at is controlling things out there, who shoots when, and pretty decent too at deciding to take it in himself without overdoing that. And he can guard the position pretty well. When he looks bad, it is usually from having too litlle outside firepower to get the floor spread. Switching to either Stuckey, or Bynum, would not help our starters any. Still, our starters, as they are, have exactly a 50 /50 win to loss ratio. Certainly not ideal, but not horrid either. But yes, in need of improvement.

In my opinion, a very good starting unit would be Knight, English (or Daye or Middleton), Singler, Monroe, Drummond. Until we try it, coach has not begun to get this team to work together as best as it can.

Just to remind you, our bench has not helped win a game since Bynum and Stuckey have been in together. Before that, it became a pretty potent bench due to the combination of Daye and CV providing outside shooting to spread the floor.

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Agree with this. It just goes to show you that if you have a ball-hungry PG (Bynum) and a monster defensive enforcer at the C (Drummond), you can surround them with ANY players that resemble shooters and you've got a positive result. Why can't the coach see this?

BTW, I kept watching that clip Roscoe posted at the beginning of the thread. I have forgotten just how good defensively Rodman was. It's a thing of beauty when he was defending Bird posting up.

I liked the game. The team is improving in fits and starts. The point guard debate won't go away because it is a weakness of the team no matter who is running the show.

Singler looked lively again. Good. He looked like he had hit the "rookie wall" a ways back.

Yes, Lee, the league has adjusted to that second unit and now regularly comes out on the shooters. But they can't seem to adjust to Drummond...which is why we fans are finally excited again.

The key is Drummond. Without Drummond, this would have been a disappointing year. The organization should now realize that personnel decisions need to be based on the notion of Drummond at center.

To that effect, Monroe simply has to get a jumper. Notice how often he gets the ball about 15 feet out late in the clock and because he doesn't have a shot, drops it off to someone who is stuck with the clock running out. I want to see Monroe as a success next to Drummond. He needs a jumper to make it work smoothly.

I agree that stuck and Bynum cant coexist in the back court since they are both horrible without the ball. Bynum is defenitely better than Stuckey as far as getting into the lane and setting anyone else up for a shot (especially Dre with the oop) and since Dre is the future and he obviously has a rapore with Bynum? Stuck is theodd man out and I dont think its close. Stuckey has shown a slight improvement in his outside shot this year but way too little too late.. and he still has blinders on when he drives into the paint, not only does he not see his teammates open for a drop off or oop...but he rarely sees the defender in front of him and is still called for too many offensive fouls. At this point I think he should be the backup to the backup and would even like to see English or Middleton get some of his burn since I dont se him as any part movng forward. Everything oving forward to end this season should be about finding which pieces currently on our roster will fit with the style of game we are going to be using to best fascilitate Dre's growth. We have done as much showcasing as can be expected and if there are no suitors? well " nice goin Dumars we're stuck with em...but we dont have to play them". The scouting reports are out and our second unit can shoot from deep when they have space...but they dont put it on the floor well. It is also known that Dre and Bynum like to oop...unfortunately for the opponents they can close out on our shooters but they cant do anything about the manchild rolling to the rim.

Got to mention how Singler fits into all this so far. Recall that it was the addition of Singler to our starting unit that made the starting unit good enough to start winning at least a game here and there. Also, Singler was the 3rd outside shooter, combined with CV and Daye, that made our 2nd unit so good. Singler was removed from our 2nd unit when Bynum was kept as part of the 2nd unit even though a healthy Stuckey returned. As bad as the combo of Stuckey and Bynum is, the fact Singler is not part of the group also hurts. Singler has returned though these last couple of games to that 2nd unit.

And about that "wall" some think Singler hit. Hey, he had an eye injury. It seemed he could not see to shoot the ball for several games. As far as I can tell, there is nothing more to that. Lately, he is hitting his shots at all ranges, just as he was before the eye injury.

And also, with all this talk about a 2nd unit - it would hardly matter what 2nd unit we used if we just fixed our starters, who could then just play 40 minutes a game.